Almost Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Almost Romance

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Author

  Almost Romance

  The Clover Park STUDS Series, Book 4

  © 2015 Kylie Gilmore

  Physicist Kate Lewis is shocked when the man she left behind travels one thousand miles to crash the physics department’s holiday party and ask for a second chance. Kate doesn’t do long-distance relationships. But she does do Ian. Multiple times. Small problem—she has a boyfriend. Too bad love isn’t a science.

  Author’s Note

  Welcome to Clover Park where everyone gets lucky! To find out more about Barry, Dave, Will, Ian and all the other sexy, sweet heroes sweeping women off their feet in Clover Park, check out the rest of the books in the Clover Park STUDs series and the connected Clover Park series (each is a standalone story set in the same world):

  Almost in Love (Book 1)

  Almost Married (Book 2)

  Almost Over It (Book 3)

  Almost Romance (Book 4)

  Almost Hitched (Book 5)

  And don’t miss the Clover Park series:

  The Opposite of Wild (Book 1)

  Daisy Does It All (Book 2)

  Bad Taste in Men (Book 3)

  Kissing Santa (Book 4)

  Restless Harmony (Book 5)

  Not My Romeo (Book 6)

  Rev Me Up (Book 7)

  An Ambitious Engagement (Book 8)

  Clutch Player (Book 9)

  A Tempting Friendship (Book 10)

  Sign up for my newsletter to be emailed when the next book releases.

  Visit http://www.kyliegilmore.com for more fun stuff.

  Find me on Facebook and Twitter.

  Chapter One

  Kate Lewis piled her plate with red, green, and blue artificially colored mini cheese balls at the University of Chicago’s physics department holiday party while calculating how much longer she had to pretend to be merry. She was dying to take off these awful pantyhose, go to the lab, and get back to work. Someone cranked up the Bare Naked Ladies’ holiday CD, and she relaxed marginally.

  The department’s secretary had draped silver garland along the ceiling in an attempt to make the normally sterile meeting room feel festive. The long meeting table had been pushed to the side to hold the hors d’oeuvres, with a small artificial tree at one end of the table and a menorah with fake candles at the other end. The chairs were gone, which just made all the physicists cling to the periphery of the room. She could develop a theory of molecular party dynamics, but she’d much rather get back to the real work of particle physics.

  “I heard the pigs in blankets are good,” a familiar masculine voice said.

  She whirled and mini cheese balls scattered everywhere. “Ian! What’re you doing here?”

  She immediately dropped to the floor to pick up the mess and hide the fact that she was in the throes of a full-on body blush. Ian Furnukle, the man who rid her of her damn virginity four years ago, knelt at her side to help. He wore a black sweater, khakis, and black Adidas sneakers. His scent was woodsy with a hint of citrus that she knew was his cologne, but it still worked like a cool breeze after a rain shower. Dammit! Her thoughts always went squirrely when Ian was around. He had the worst possible timing. He was not supposed to be here in Chicago. Last she’d heard he was working in Boston.

  His wavy brown hair fell over one eye, and he pushed it away. “Hi, Kate.”

  “Hi!” she squeaked. “Why are you here?” Kate didn’t do surprises well.

  He was so close it felt like he was about to kiss her. Her heart was racing. He hadn’t shaved. Last time she’d seen him he was clean-shaven, and she’d missed the stubble. She pushed her large tortoiseshell glasses back in place with a shaky hand and met his warm brown eyes.

  He gave her a lopsided smile. “I’m in consulting. Picked up the physics lab as a client.”

  Ian had a PhD in computer science and worked wherever hard-core computer applications were needed. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he might be needed in a lab with heavy data-analysis requirements. Still, she was a little pissed her older sister, Amber, hadn’t mentioned Ian was in Chicago. She always knew the basics on Ian’s life on account of Amber being married to Ian’s older brother Barry.

  He finished piling the cheese balls on the plate, stood, and tossed it in the trash. By the time he returned to her side, she was standing in a composed, confident way.

  She reached out and shook his hand in a hearty gesture, ignoring the hot tingles the touch produced. “Ian, it was very nice to see you. I must be going now.”

  “Am I making you nervous?”

  Her speech always became more formal when she was nervous. It was an unfortunate fallback to her formal upbringing. Despite the fact that she’d only seen Ian on and off over the past four years, the one summer they’d spent together had been deeply intimate. No one ever understood her better than Ian.

  “Of course not.” She smoothed her flyaway blond hair and checked to be sure it was still in the loose bun she’d made this morning. Mostly still in a bun. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she added for good measure.

  Now she felt like she couldn’t leave or it would confirm Ian’s theory of his proximity making her nervous. She stood there, unsure what to do with her hands. As if this holiday party hadn’t been awkward enough with a bunch of physicists standing around pretending to have a good time. She put a hand on her hip and went for party casual. Ian was a bit of a wildcard in her life. They were thrown together at random intervals due to the married-siblings connection. The last time she’d seen him—approximately seven months ago—had been…overstimulating.

  Ian shoved his hands in his pockets. “How ya been, Kate? You like Chicago?”

  “It’s met my expectations. And how are you?”

  He lifted one shoulder up and down. “Can’t complain.”

  She’d caved to societal expectations and worn a dark green holiday dress that she was now secretly grateful for because it made her look more like a woman with curves than her usual uniform of baggy sweater and faded jeans. Not that she cared about looking good in front of Ian. It wasn’t like he was her boyfriend. Woo! She’d love to escape to the ladies’ room and take off these pantyhose that had a stranglehold on her waist and were heating other unmentionable areas due to the extra layer. Definitely not because of Ian, she reassured herself, the man hadn’t even touched her.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall, certain that the level of her anxiety must mean she’d been away from the lab long enough. Thirty-three minutes. That definitely counted as making an appearance and having a good time. Several of her colleagues were gathered around Nate’s overly large cell phone. He was probably showing off another podcast he enjoyed about murderers. The men’s taste in entertainment did not mesh with hers. She was the only woman in the particle physics lab, where she was approximately seven months into a two-year postdoctorate fellowship. Her PhD was in experimental nuclear and particle physics. Not that she would’ve been BFFs with another woman if they happened to be there. It was like throwing two lions together. You might hope they’d bond or mate or whatever, but it would be a completely random event based on factors that she’d yet to grasp in female relationships. Her sister, Amber, seven years older, was much better at all that stuff and had advised Kate over the years. Amber was Kate’s best friend. Not that she’d ever told her sister that. Some things were better left unsaid.

  Ian’s scent wafted over her, and she realized with a start that he was now within her per
sonal space, which meant he intended to do something physical. An involuntary hot tingle of anticipation rushed through her. Sure enough, he snagged her hand and pulled her to an unoccupied corner of the room. She snatched her hand back. She couldn’t have her colleagues see her holding hands with Ian. They’d get the wrong idea. So would he.

  So would her body.

  Ian always brought out her slutty side.

  He pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Did you get the flowers? Why didn’t you return my calls or texts?”

  Their timing had always been bad. The first time they’d hooked up, as she’d explained to him when she was twenty-one, she was too young to settle down and needed to explore other male possibilities. Ian had eventually moved on to a committed relationship with a fellow computer scientist for three years, taking him off the market. That ended when the woman gave him an ultimatum—marry her or she’d walk. Ian let her walk. Kate bit back a sigh. It was regrettable that Ian had hooked up with Kate a second time when she was at the settling-down age of twenty-five because it was right before she had to move to Chicago.

  “I didn’t want to encourage you,” she said. “Excuse me. I’m very thirsty.”

  She headed back to the long table with a variety of festive hors d’oeuvres she’d yet to try and grabbed a plastic cup by the punch bowl. She hoped no one had spiked it because she didn’t want to get too crazy with Ian around. Her embarrassing lack of control around him was a serious character flaw. She could feel his heat at her back, which meant he was too close.

  She spoke over her shoulder. “This was exactly the problem four years ago. You acted like a lovesick—ah!” The plastic cup went flying as he yanked her behind a potted plant. Luckily, she hadn’t filled the cup yet. Some heads turned in their direction.

  “What are you doing?” she exclaimed.

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “I wanted some privacy.”

  “I wouldn’t call standing behind a ficus tree private.” She gestured to the leaves. “There are gaps in the foliage.”

  Ian lowered his voice. “I still think about that night.”

  She froze.

  “Do you?”

  She stared straight ahead. “I think about a lot of things.” She really tried not to think about that night. It only served to crank up her libido, which was pointless because Ian was in Boston, and she was in Chicago. Fantasizing about things she couldn’t have was a waste of her brain power. She needed all of her focus for work. She reminded herself of that whenever she found herself daydreaming about…that night.

  She occasionally dreamt about it too, waking in a hot, aching state of near orgasm. One stroke could push her over the edge. She crossed her arms, trying to appear dignified even as heat pooled between her legs.

  He leaned down to her ear. “All three times.” Ian was six foot to her five foot two and often had to lean down to her ear. Just not this close, usually. She could feel her body softening, which was entirely inappropriate for a physics holiday party. Yes, they’d had sex a grand total of three times, but she knew “that night” that he referred to had to be the most recent time because it was, unfortunately, stuck in her brain too. She’d left in a hurry right after.

  “It was only one time,” she said. One mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting time.

  His low voice was so close to her ear that the sound waves sent hot tingling vibrations through her, which made no sense as sound waves at this decibel did not produce heat. “Twice to make sure you weren’t a virgin.” Her cheeks burned. “And once to celebrate your graduation.”

  Ian had unexpectedly made an appearance at her PhD graduation from MIT last May, tagging along with his brother and Amber. He convinced her to celebrate that night with a beer. He knew beer made her lusty.

  She uncrossed her arms and met his heated gaze. “Ian, this is an inappropriate conversation for a holiday party.”

  “Show me your lab.”

  She didn’t move.

  His voice dropped to a low, scraping register that made her stomach flutter. “And then tell me all about your research in great detail.”

  She swallowed hard. She had to be firm with Ian because he was entirely too good at turning her on. Which was a very bad idea given her current situation. “You don’t want to hear about that.” She crossed her arms again, working on not melting. “You’re trying to seduce me.”

  She stepped out from behind the plant. Ian grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the hallway. “Which way?” he asked.

  “Left,” she said automatically. She pulled her hand from his warm grip and relaxed considerably now that she wasn’t stuck in the artificially festive meeting room. The hallway was cooler temperature-wise on account of less bodies, and Ian had finally gotten the message that she needed a little more space.

  “Are you working on the particle accelerator?” Ian asked as they walked.

  Now she was on familiar, confident ground. “Yes.”

  “Any publishable results?”

  “I just had a paper accepted into The Journal of Experimental and Particle Physics on a direct measurement of the total decay width of the top quark.” She stopped in front of the door and gestured to where the huge particle accelerator was located. “This is it.”

  He peered inside and whistled under his breath. He turned back to her. “Show me your office too.”

  That worked for her. She had a comfortable baggy sweater and broken-in jeans stashed in there for after the party. She did an about-face and led the way to the building next door. The cold winter air felt bracing and refreshing on their short walk over. Ian followed her into her small windowless office with a desk, computer, and file cabinet. The walls were plain white, and the floor a dingy speckled linoleum that always reminded her of scattered photons. The only personal touch was an original watercolor hanging on the wall across from her desk of a dragon breathing out a pink cloud. It was a graduation gift from Amber, who was an amazing watercolor artist. The painting inspired her to expand her imagination when lost in equations, to look for new and different ways to explain the universe.

  She turned, about to ask Ian to give her a moment to change, when the room went dark. “Ian! Turn the lights back on.”

  The door clicked shut. “Not until you answer a few questions.”

  She considered if she could maneuver in the dark to the desk drawer where she’d stashed her purse with its handy flashlight keychain. But then Ian held both of her hands in his warm grip, which somehow warmed her all over. “Okay, what?” she asked.

  “How many men have you slept with in the last four years?” While the question was intimate, it was within the normal realm of their conversations. They talked about anything and everything. Ian had been very helpful in explaining things of a sexual nature early on, before she was experienced. Still, this conversation could easily become foreplay, especially in the private darkness of her office. Ian was quite the dirty talker, capable of accelerating her libido at an alarmingly high rate.

  “You’re not my boyfriend,” she said. “You don’t get to ask me questions about my sexual history.”

  His thumb stroked across the sensitive underside of her wrist, making her pulse skitter. “Counting me.”

  She sucked in a breath. “I fail to see the relevance of this question.”

  “That many, huh? Twenty, thirty?”

  “No! Five!” She really couldn’t tolerate inaccuracies, especially in numbers. Like nails on the chalkboard for her.

  He squeezed her hands gently. “Five. Including me. Did you sow your wild oats, Kate?” She could hear the smile in his voice, which annoyed her because his number before his big relationship was probably much higher.

  “I guess.” She’d told him she’d wanted to sow her wild oats in grad school after their first hookup, but truthfully the men she’d been with had been rather disappointing. None of them had given her the full-tilt boogie orgasm she’d hoped for, which would’ve made them a ten on her rating system. Ian had explaine
d about the full-tilt boogie once when she was a virgin and dying not to be. The topic came up naturally when they’d overheard the screams of ecstasy from across the hall where their respective siblings, Amber and Barry, were fucking like rabbits. She and Ian were often kicked out of the apartment for their siblings’ naked time and hung out a lot that one summer because of it.

  “And how would you rate those other men on your performance scale of one to ten?” Ian asked, entwining his fingers with hers. “Ten being full-tilt boogie.”

  She flushed and yanked her hands out of his grasp. “Ian, this conversation is over.” The way he intuitively knew what was in her head was unnerving. Especially since she always had to guess, usually incorrectly, what was going on in someone else’s head. She carefully skirted her way around him and turned the light back on. She blinked owlishly.

  “That bad, huh?” he asked. “Only threes or fours, or, ooh—” his voice took on a pitying tone “—pathetic ones?”

  “Not at all! The median was seven point two.”

  He leaned close and spoke the next words near her ear, his breath hot across her skin, making her knees weak. “And what was I?”

  She squirmed because the truth was only going to get her in deeper. She clung to a technicality. If she discarded the outlier, the graduation beer-driven hookup, and focused on the deflowering, she had a good answer. “I had nothing to compare you to, so no relevant scale or scoring system was applicable.”

  He pulled back and met her eyes. “Ten?”

  “A solid eight.” She was forced to admit that for the sake of accuracy.

  He cocked his head. “Why not a ten?”

  “A ten requires things you couldn’t be expected to do with a virgin in terms of stimulation or erotic…” She trailed off at the heated look in his eyes, feeling like somehow the conversation had gotten away from her. She fanned herself, suddenly overheated. “I wish I had a window.” A nice cold winter breeze would be awesome.

  He leaned closer, and her body temperature spiked again. It was so inconvenient the way he took her from a nice comfortable state of rest to full thrusters ahead. “You’re forgetting the last time we were together.”